Morning Links: Catching Fire Edition

A Lee Bul work at the Hayward Gallery in London reportedly caught on fire just hours before it was to go on view. Though it’s still unknown which piece went up in flames, there’s some tragic irony to the burning: a piece in her new show was based on the Hindenburg. [The Art Newspaper]

What’s the connection between collector Michael Xufu Huang, a director of Pace Gallery, a Swedish photography museum, and Aby Rosen? A New York socialite who is hardly what she seems. [The Cut]

Endings

A federal investigation in New York into allegations that Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier improperly overcharged Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev on a number of paintings has reportedly been shut down. Among the reasons for closing the inquiry, according to Bloomberg, was that Rybolovlev’s Leonardo, Salvator Mundi, sold for $450.3 million—more than three times what he had paid for it. [Bloomberg]

With the Brooklyn gallery Cleopatra’s having officially closed up shop after ten years, its founders—Bridget Donahue, Bridget Finn, Colleen Grennan, Kate McNamara, and Erin Somerville—take a walk down memory lane. [Artforum]

Beginnings

Freeports—storage facilities that are exempt from customs duties and other taxes—have long been associated with Europe. But now, New York has its own major one: Arcis Art Storage, in the city’s Harlem neighborhood. [Longreads]

Fashion

Garage offers a glance at Mickalene Thomas’s latest series of photographs, many of which are brightly colored and feature the collector and art consultant Racquel Chevremont. [Garage]

Louis Vuitton debuted its Cruise 2019 collection at France’s Fondation Maeght, an art space founded by two dealers in 1964 that now has one of the biggest art collections in Europe. [Condé Nast Traveler]

Museums

Ahead of its opening, which is currently slated for 2020, the Cheech Marin Center of Chicano Art, Culture, and Industry in Riverside, California, has hit its $3 million fundraising goal. [The Press-Enterprise]

The Souls Grown Deep Foundation has helped the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts add 34 works by African-American artists to its collection. Among their newest acquisitions are pieces by Thornton Dial, Purvis Young, and others. [Richmond Times-Dispatch]

Biennials

Siddhartha Mitter reviews this year’s Dak’art Biennial of Contemporary African Art, which he says left him “full, but frustrated,” primarily due to its scale. “Just as you can’t ‘do Africa’ in a lifetime,” he writes, “you can’t do its art in a week.” [Artforum]

Correction 05/30/2018, 10:40 a.m.:An earlier version of this article misgendered Lee Bul. The post has been updated to reflect this.